With LR v7.0, Is it now possible to edit local photos with both Lightroom and Lightroom Classic?

So does this imply that I can now work on locally stored photos with LR Classic and LR v7.0 in parallel? Are there any restrictions or will changes made on either side synch seamlessly?

By @peterw89047271

Not exactly seamlessly…but close. What will help to understand it is if you have ever transferred edits between Lightroom Classic and Adobe Camera Raw or Bridge, because basically, it’s the same workflow as that: You must manage the XMP sidecar files that carry the edit metadata. If you are already doing this with Camera Raw/Bridge, you already know what to do. If you don’t already know…

Camera Raw, Bridge, and now Lightroom (in local mode only) read and write any changes to the XMP sidecar files they create with the same base filenames as their images, stored in the same folder.

But, Lightroom Classic reads and writes any changes to its currently open catalog database by default, not out to XMP sidecar files.

So, by default:

• If you edit in Lightroom local mode, Camera Raw, or Bridge, the changes won’t be visible in Lightroom Classic until you select the images in the Library module* and choose Metadata > Read Metadata from Files. 
• If you edit in Lightroom Classic, the changes won’t be visible to the other three applications until you select the images in the Library module* and choose Metadata > Save Metadata to Files. 

If you are going to do this often, you probably want to open Lightroom Classic Catalog Settings, click the Metadata tab, and enable “Automatically Write Changes into XMP” so that you no longer have to manually save to the XMP sidecars.

What this also means is that changes you make in Camera Raw, Bridge, or Lightroom local mode should show up in the other two easily. But maybe not immediately, because some don’t update continuously. Sometimes you have to force them to read/write metadata, but they don’t all have commands for that.

*If you’re in the Develop module, the metadata commands are on the Photo menu.

Maybe not entirely "seamlessly" .

Apparently Lr saves the edits as XMP which LrC might use when Importing to the LrC Catalog.

But, for me, for existing photos in LrC, reading Metadata did not update the LrC preview to be the same as the Lr Preview.

I don't think anything will "mess up" if you don't [Copy photo to Cloud].

But this feature is 'Magic' for people wanting to use Lr with only local files.